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E. Stanley Jones
Eli Stanley Jones (1884–1973). Born on January 3, 1884, in Clarksville, Maryland, to George Washington and Lydia Jones, E. Stanley Jones was an American Methodist missionary, evangelist, and author renowned for his global ministry and interfaith dialogue. Raised in a devout Methodist family, he converted at 17 during a revival meeting, sensing a call to preach. He graduated from Asbury College in Kentucky (1907), where he honed his oratorical skills, and briefly studied law before committing to ministry. Ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he sailed to India in 1907 as a missionary under the Methodist Board of Missions, pastoring an English-speaking church in Lucknow and later focusing on evangelism among India’s intellectual and low-caste communities. His “round table conferences” fostered open discussions with Hindus and Muslims, earning respect from figures like Mahatma Gandhi. Jones authored 28 books, including The Christ of the Indian Road (1925), a bestseller translated into 30 languages, Christ at the Round Table (1928), Victorious Living (1936), and The Divine Yes (1975, posthumous), emphasizing Christ’s universal appeal. A global preacher, he spoke in over 40 countries, advocating Christian unity and social justice, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 and 1963. Married to Mabel Lossing in 1911, a missionary educator, they had one daughter, Eunice, who became a missionary. Despite health struggles, including a stroke in 1971, Jones died on January 25, 1973, in Bareilly, India, saying, “The way to God is Christ, and He is open to all.”
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E. Stanley Jones emphasizes the importance of Jesus' purpose to bring the good news of the Kingdom of God, highlighting how prayer revolves around the coming of the Kingdom and the fulfillment of God's will on earth. The Kingdom is the core of everything, the framework on which all things hang. Jones explains that God's Kingdom is a complete totalitarianism where obedience leads to total freedom, contrasting it with earthly totalitarian systems that result in bondage.
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Thy Kingdom Come -- Thy Will Be Done
Jesus summed up his life purpose in these words: "I must give the good news of the Kingdom of God . . . for that is what I was sent to do." (Luke 4:43). What did he mean by it? He made it the first petition in the Lord's Prayer: "When you pray say: Our Father . . . Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Prayer is the deepest thing we do and in that deepest thing we do, the coming of the Kingdom is the most important. It is the foremost and the uppermost -- without it the prayer is comparatively meaningless. This is the framework and the core of everything. Rauschenbush says, "The Kingdom is the vertebrae on which all things in the body hang." The key is this: "Thy Kingdom come. They will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven." The second phrase explains the first. The coming of the Kingdom was the doing of the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven. How is the will of God done in heaven? In the individual will? Yes. In the collective will? Yes. In the total social arrangements of heaven? Yes. It is a complete totalitarianism, a total way of life in this life now. But wouldn't that be total bondage? Strangely enough, No. Here is a complete totalitarianism in which, when you obey it totally, you find total freedom. I do not argue. I only testify: When I belong to Christ and his Kingdom, I am most my own. Bound to the Kingdom, I walk the earth free. Low at his feet, I stand straight before everything else. There is one difference between the earthborn totalitarianism and God's heavenborn totalitarianism: if you obey the earthborn totalitarianisms, fascism, naziism, communism totally you find total bondage. If you obey God's Kingdom you will find total freedom.
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Eli Stanley Jones (1884–1973). Born on January 3, 1884, in Clarksville, Maryland, to George Washington and Lydia Jones, E. Stanley Jones was an American Methodist missionary, evangelist, and author renowned for his global ministry and interfaith dialogue. Raised in a devout Methodist family, he converted at 17 during a revival meeting, sensing a call to preach. He graduated from Asbury College in Kentucky (1907), where he honed his oratorical skills, and briefly studied law before committing to ministry. Ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he sailed to India in 1907 as a missionary under the Methodist Board of Missions, pastoring an English-speaking church in Lucknow and later focusing on evangelism among India’s intellectual and low-caste communities. His “round table conferences” fostered open discussions with Hindus and Muslims, earning respect from figures like Mahatma Gandhi. Jones authored 28 books, including The Christ of the Indian Road (1925), a bestseller translated into 30 languages, Christ at the Round Table (1928), Victorious Living (1936), and The Divine Yes (1975, posthumous), emphasizing Christ’s universal appeal. A global preacher, he spoke in over 40 countries, advocating Christian unity and social justice, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 and 1963. Married to Mabel Lossing in 1911, a missionary educator, they had one daughter, Eunice, who became a missionary. Despite health struggles, including a stroke in 1971, Jones died on January 25, 1973, in Bareilly, India, saying, “The way to God is Christ, and He is open to all.”